Imagine working with a coworker who needs important information from you before they can proceed with their job. They’re so impatient that they want you to give them the information over the phone instead of looking at the email you’re about to send with all the details.

If you warned them that they needed to look at the details in the email before proceeding, what would you do if they ignored that warning and proceeded anyway and got mad at you when they didn’t have the facts straight?

In this story, a civil engineer is in this situation when he sends drawings to a builder who is in a hurry. The builder gets really mad at him when he miscalculates since he failed to wait and look at the drawings.

The engineer went out of his way to try to fix the situation, but he’s wondering if he went too far. He didn’t intend for his solution to cost the builder his job.

Let’s read all about it.

AITAH for documenting that a builder ignored my drawings after he blamed me for his mistake?

I work as a civil engineer in construction.

A builder was under a lot of pressure trying to get some concrete foundations built, so I tried to help him out.

First thing in the morning I called him to let him know I’d finished revising the foundation drawings and was emailing them through.

He wanted me to explain the changes over the phone.

The builder didn’t listen.

I told him I’d give him a brief overview, but I repeated three times that he was to wait for the drawings and build from the drawings, not from my verbal description, in case there was any misunderstanding.

The drawings arrived only minutes later.

I got to site and found the foundations had been built incorrectly.

When I asked whether he’d looked at the drawings, he said, “No, I trusted what you said on the phone.”

It got pretty dramatic!

He then blamed me, questioned my qualifications, told me my calculations were wrong, and completely lost his temper.

His second-in-charge had to step in and calm him down.

I calmly went back through exactly what I’d said on the phone. Despite being blamed, I told him I’d see whether what he’d built could still work so he wouldn’t have to demolish and rebuild it.

He demanded an answer immediately.

It takes time to make sure everything is correct.

But I explained I’d need to run the engineering calculations first.

That just triggered another rant about engineers.

Fortunately, I managed to make his construction work with some design changes. However, because of how the interaction went and because he was trying to shift the blame onto me, I documented in my follow-up email that I had repeatedly instructed him to wait for the drawings, that he chose not to look at them before building, and that he also never sent the site photos he’d promised.

He’s wondering if his documentation had bigger consequences than he intended.

On my next site visit there was a different foreman, and I was told the previous foreman had been let go.

Now I’m wondering if documenting what actually happened contributed to him losing his job.

Part of me also wonders whether he’d already been on his way out and simply used me as a verbal punching bag that day.

AITAH for documenting the facts, knowing it may have played a part in him being fired?

Never Miss a Story

Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.

Those are two good possibilities. The foreman may have known he was probably going to get fired, or his mess up may have caused it. Either way, OP didn’t do anything wrong. The foreman did mess up, and OP just called him out on it and tried to fix the situation.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person has a suggestion of what to say the next time he’s in a similar situation.

Another person doesn’t think he did anything wrong.

This person explains why the guy got fired.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who got back at slacking coworkers with fresh-baked treats.

Another person is glad the foreman got fired.

The foreman did a bad job. That’s why he lost his job. Sure, OP’s documentation may have contributed to that, but all he did was tell the truth.

He has nothing to feel bad about.